• "One last thing," -- Lt. Columbo

Apple's (AAPL) quarter was just OK (not great) and gross margins were not off the charts.

• How much to sell?

"One last thing."

-- Lt. Columbo

We see $1.1 billion to sell market on close.

• Lou Reed's most memorable quotes make for fascinating reading.

Standing on the corner

Suitcase is in my hand

Jack is in his corset, and Jane is in her vest

I'm in a rock 'n' roll band!

-- Lou Reed, "Sweet Jane"

Mr. Market continues to walk on the wild side in its nearly uninterrupted move the up side.

But it is no longer the case for Lou Reed, who passed away over the weekend.

Reed was as famed for his sharp tongue as he was for his groundbreaking music.

Never short of an opinion, the Velvet Underground star's most memorable quotes make for fascinating reading.

Here are 14 of his best:

1. "I think that everything happens for a reason, everything happens when it's going to happen."

2. "I don't like nostalgia unless it's mine."

3. "I don't believe in dressing up reality. I don't believe in using makeup to make things look smoother."

4. "I tried to give up drugs by drinking."

5. "The music is all. People should die for it. People are dying for everything else, so why not the music?"

6. "These are really terribly rough times, and we really should try to be as nice to each other as possible."

7. "It's depressing when you're still around and your albums are out of print."

8. "I always believed that I have something important to say and I said it."

9. "I don't know anyone actually who does care what a critic says."

10. "I don't know what goes on in the crowd. I've had them show up and throw beer cans at me. I caused riots in most of the major cities."

11. "I'm in this business for too long to be half-hearted about anything."

12. "Me, I've concentrated on music pretty much to the exclusion of other things."

13. "I don't really think about what the subject of my next album will be. I just know that I'm going to make another album."

And of course -- 14. "One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz."

I am outta here, like Lou, a bit early today.

Thanks for reading my Diary and enjoy your evening.

And God bless Uncle Vinnie.

• Meanwhile, staples are still outperforming.

Consumer staples continue as the world's fair, and some of the anointed ones, including Tesla (TSLA), Netflix (NFLX), Priceline (PCLN) and the like, are beginning to suffer.

Usually, this is a cocktail for a faltering market, but there is nothing usual about today's stock market.

• My only trade today was to buy more TBT.

My only trade today has been to add on to ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (TBT).

• An update from real estate maven Mark Hanson.

Real estate maven Mark Hanson updates his housing view this afternoon after another miss this morning in the industry data:

Sept. Pending Sales... the largest MoM drop since Sept 2001... not 2011... yes, 2001. Don't let them tell you 'this is normal for Sept'

The 'oh-crap' moment is now in the can. Going forward, "Existing Sales" volume will disappoint on a YoY basis for several quarters. There is no way around it... Existing Sales is terribly backward looking and you can't change history no matter how hard certain parties try.

'House Prices' have already fallen sharply post-surge and continue to weaken -- prices are set at contract but not recorded until "closing" -- simply awaiting printing by lagging surveys.

Contrary to 'New' Home Sales, Existing Sales are where the Fed's go-go juice really showed up thanks to the Twist/QE 3, 4 increase in "purchasing power" beginning in Q4 2011 and the new-era "investor" rush to market in mid-2012. This is evident in the demand divergence between the two series. As such, the "post-surge" housing market "demand collapse" will be much more evident in this series than it was by the 27% MoM drop in New Home Sales in July.  

In short, over the next few months we will see the two series quickly "converge" -- Existing Sales weaken considerably to be more in-line with the weak builder demand -- reflecting conditions more akin to the "hangover" period following the sunset of the Homebuyer Tax Credit.  

Along with this comes lower YoY Existing and New Sales volume along with down trending MoM house prices as far out as July 2014, at which point house prices have a good shot at being negative YoY as well.

Sept Pending Home Sales Low-lights

1) US Pendings Fell 21.1% MoM on an NSA basis (down more not including last month's revision), the most on record for any Sept since Sept 2001...that's a terrible period to comp against.  

2) On a YoY basis Pendings were down 4.3% on a daily basis (Sept 2013 had 1 extra business day YoY). And remember, in Sept demand was still being pulled forward due to rates and fear of Gov't shutdown.

3) Levels of Sept Pendings virtually ensure Oct through April Existing Sales" are lower YoY. A year ago volume outperformed (muted seasonality) in winter & spring, as new-era "investors" all dove in at the same time. This year the market will underperform (heavier than normal seasonality) due to the stimulus "hangover". This delta will produce meaningful YoY Existing Sales declines especially through April 2014.

4) Leading indicating Western region absolute Pending Sales lowest since 2007.  

5) Heavily weighted, leading-indicating Northeast & West Sept Pendings down 31% & 20% MoM NSA respectively, also 12-year record drops.

6) YoY, Northeast & West Pendings down YoY by 3.1% and 5.2% respectively...the first YoY drop since after the 2010 sunset of the Homebuyer Tax Credit.

7) MoM, Sept national Pendings dropped 54% and 40% more than the 10-year average and post housing market crash avg Sept respective seasonal drops.

**note, items 5 & 6 were straight from NAR and not normalized for more business days this Sept than last. In short, the YoY drop is larger than reflected in 5 & 6.

• Huge winner!

Altisource Residential (RESI) breaks out to an all-time high and now (in percentage terms) is a bigger winner than Monitise (MONI.L).

• I got props from WSJ.

The Wall Street Journal did a nice profile of my view of the Twitter IPO this afternoon.

• Here are his musings at midday.

Midday musings from Sir Arthur Cashin:

So far a Monday Meander in place.  Most asset classes are little changed.  FOMC provides excuse as most see a strategy meeting rather than action.

Sleepy session run rate projects to NYSE final volume of 600/680.

• I figured as much.

I recently cautioned that my contacts in the homebuilding industry were seeing weakening orders and traffic.

Goldman Sachs on today's home sales report:

Pending home sales declined 5.6% in September (vs consensus Flat). The last drop of similar size occurred in April 2011. Declines were seen in all four regions of the country, although sales in the Northeast (-9.6%), West (-9.0%), and Midwest (-8.3%) fell by more than sales in the South (-0.4%). Pending home sales―based on contract signings rather than closings―are generally seen as a leading indicator of existing home sales.

• Here it is.

An interesting market statistic: 2012 and 2013 were back-to-back years when the opening print in the S&P 500 was never tested/pierced, which is only the second time in the history of the S&P 500 -- the other time was 1975 and 1976 -- when this has been the case. It is also interesting to note that in 1977 the S&P 500 fell by 11%.

• Namely, Dallas Fed and industrial production data.

Following a mixed bag of regional manufacturing Fed surveys and the soft Markit national PMI, the Dallas Fed (second-to-last area to report before the ISM) said its index fell to 3.6 from 12.8, which was well below the estimate of 10.0. It's the lowest since May and, of course, happened during the D.C. uncertainty, but the components were mixed as new orders were up slightly month over  month. Of note, in the broad macro discussion of inflation vs. deflation, the Dallas Fed said "upward pressure on prices continued in October, and compensation costs picked up notably." Prices Paid rose to a nine-month high and the wages and benefits index rose from 9.7 to 20.4, "reaching its highest level since July 2012."

Bottom line: October data will get a pass due to politics bringing to question whether activity since the D.C. deal will pick up.

In terms of industrial production, it rose by 0.6% month over month, above the estimate of up 0.4%, but the beat was all due to an increase in utility output. Manufacturing production, the key part of the data, was up just 0.1% vs. the estimate of up 0.3% as a rise in durable goods was offset by nondurables. The production of vehicles and parts was up 2%, and machinery was higher by 1.5%, but the production of computer/electronics was down 0.5% with declines also seen in electrical equipment, paper, chemicals and textiles.

The 3.2% year-over-year gain in industrial production is the best since November, with manufacturing the highest since December, but still points to an economy growing no better than 2% and also comes ahead of a likely slowdown in October due to the government shutdown. The year-to-date average of 2.3% year-over-year growth compares with 2.8% in 2012, 3% in 2011 and 6.5% in 2010. Capacity utilization improved to 78.3% from 77.9% but still remains below the 30-year average of about 80% (79.7% to be exact).

Bottom line: This industrial production figure follows the soft durable goods orders seen last week for September, implying the production of goods in future months would have moderated even without the government stoppage.

• Usually, this foreshadows broader market weakness.

We have remarkable strength in defensive consumer staples today, including Coca-Cola (KO), PepsiCo (PEP), Procter & Gamble (PG), Colgate-Palmolive (CL), International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF), Clorox (CLX) and the like.

Usually, this foreshadows broader market weakness.

• Today's honor goes to Carl Icahn.

The tweet of the day is from who else but Carl Icahn.

• Twitter's shares will likely double in the first month of trading -- or maybe even sooner.

He rocks in the tree tops all day long

Hoppin' and a-boppin' and singing his song

All the little birdies on Jaybird Street

Love to hear the robin go tweet tweet tweet!

-- Leon René under the pseudonym of Jimmie Thomas (popularized by Bobby Day and Michael Jackson), "Rockin' Robin"

In less than 140 characters: I am manifestly bullish on the Twitter IPO.

It is my view that Twitter's shares will likely double in the first month of trading -- or maybe sooner.

Twitter is the largest source of public conversation in the world.

With over 230 million active monthly users and more than 500 million tweets daily, the unique structure of the Twitter experience brings the company smack in the middle of both the mobile delivery of content and advertising. In the most recent three months, 76% of the company's monthly active users accessed Twitter from a mobile device. Over 70% of Twitter's ad sales are generated from these mobile devices, and the company expects that the proportion of active users on advertising revenue generated from mobile phones and tablets will grow in the future.

Looking forward, the larger the user base becomes the greater the value proposition will be for advertisers -- and the greater the worth of Twitter's shares.

Given the lack of competition in its space, Twitter's current monopolistic market position suggests a likely quick acceptance as an "anointed stock," replicating the action of Internet service provider America Online (AOL) in the early 1990s and Internet goods seller Amazon (AMZN) in the mid to late 1990s. As such, Twitter's share price may not be required, as most stocks are, to achieve visibility of early profits. Indeed, pegging the company's share price (similar to AOL and Amazon back in the day) to the traditional metrics of profits and cash flows will not likely be a headwind to appreciation over the next few years, as its dominant market share and top-line growth will be conspicuous.

Just When I Thought I Was Out of Twitter, It Pulled Me Back In

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."

-- Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), The Godfather: Part III

The irony is not lost on me that while I am a bull on Twitter's IPO, over 100 days ago (with more than 65,000 followers), I decided to discontinue tweeting for personal reasons. At that time, I found it too cumbersome to navigate the Twittersphere of sharks in order to find the good fish. (Note: I further discussed my rationale for leaving Twitter with Joe Nocera of The New York Times.)

That said, I returned to Twitter on Oct. 8 after a four-month summer vacation, which speaks volumes of the potential utility I see in Twitter.

I have been off Twitter for almost four months.

It should be obvious after a couple of tweets I posted yesterday that I have decided to return to Twitter on a limited basis.

While I don't plan to post as frequently as I have in the past, I recognize (when conducted in a civil manner) that Twitter can be legitimate and value-added platform for instantaneously communicating to others.

Frankly, if it is good enough for Warren Buffett, Carl Icahn and a number of other investment professionals that I respect -- it is good enough for me.

So, I am back, and I am giving Twitter another whirl.

In doing so, I plan to ignore (and block) the haters because haters are gonna hate.

-- Doug Kass, "Life Is Tweet Again" (Oct. 9)

The Twitter IPO

I have read Twitter's 231-page offering document.

Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal published a column that describes some of the company's most recent financings.

In its latest valuation, Twitter valued the shares at $20.62 based on the secondary market transactions.

For discussion purposes, I am presuming that Twitter sells 80 million shares (including 10 million over allotment) at $22 a share -- the midpoint of the range is $18.50 a share. The pro forma equity capitalization will be about $12.25 billion at the IPO offering price, and approximately $1.75 billion of primary stock will be sold to investors. (Note: This is above the underwriters' initial estimates of $11.0 billion and $1.44 billion, respectively.) Officers, directors and 5% holders will own about 51.5% of the outstanding shares.

Twitter recorded only about $28 million in revenue in 2010. The company's top-line growth since then has been astonishing. Through the first nine months of 2013, Twitter's sales were $422 million (compared to $205 million a year earlier). Twitter will likely achieve sales in excess of $600 million for full year 2013.

Monthly active users rose by 39% (to 231 million) throughout the first nine months of the year.

Net losses totaled $133 million for the nine-month period ended Sept. 30, 2013, up from $70 million of losses a year earlier.

The company's accumulated deficit from inception is about $483 million, and losses are expected for the next few years.

Background

As described in the company's prospectus:

Twitter is a global platform for public self-expression and conversation in real time. By developing a fundamentally new way for people to create, distribute and discover content, we have democratized content creation and distribution, enabling any voice to echo around the world instantly and unfiltered. Our platform is unique in its simplicity: Tweets are limited to 140 characters of text. This constraint makes it easy for anyone to quickly create, distribute and discover content that is consistent across our platform and optimized for mobile devices. As a result, Tweets drive a high velocity of information exchange that makes Twitter uniquely "live." We aim to become an indispensable daily companion to live human experiences.

People are at the heart of Twitter. We have already achieved significant global scale, and we continue to grow. We have more than 230 million monthly active users, or MAUs, and more than 100 million daily active users, spanning nearly every country. Our users include millions of people from around the world, as well as influential individuals and organizations, such as world leaders, government officials, celebrities, athletes, journalists, sports teams, media outlets and brands. Our users create approximately 500 million Tweets every day.

Twitter is a public, real-time platform where any user can create a Tweet and any user can follow other users. We do not impose restrictions on whom a user can follow, which greatly enhances the breadth and depth of available content and allows users to discover the content they care about most. Additionally, users can be followed by thousands or millions of other users without requiring a reciprocal relationship, enhancing the ability of our users to reach a broad audience. The public nature of our platform allows us and others to extend the reach of Twitter content beyond our properties.

Media outlets distribute Tweets beyond our properties to complement their content by making it more timely, relevant and comprehensive. Tweets have appeared on over one million third-party websites, and in the third quarter of 2013 there were approximately 48 billion online impressions of Tweets off of our properties.

Twitter provides a compelling and efficient way for people to stay informed about their interests, discover what is happening in their world right now and interact directly with each other. We enable the timely creation and distribution of ideas and information among people and organizations at a local and global scale. Our platform allows users to browse through Tweets quickly and explore content more deeply through links, photos, media and other applications that can be attached to each Tweet. As a result, when events happen in the world, whether planned, like sporting events and television shows, or unplanned, like natural disasters and political revolutions, the digital experience of those events happens in real time on Twitter. People can communicate with each other during these events as they occur, creating powerful shared experiences.

Establishing Street Cred

Before discussing Twitter's merits, I feel I must emphasis that it is not in my DNA to normally be excited about the share price prospects of a company that is operating at a loss, that will be in the red for several more years and that has a share price that is not valued on fundamentals.

From the early going, I have been a consistent skeptic of the Internet (when it was proven to be appropriate back in the last tech/Internet bubble during the late 1990s).

Importantly, the company I was most bearish on was AOL (not in the beginning of its life but rather during its maturation and within an increased competitive landscape).

Let me summarize my street cred of Internet skepticism.

• America Online and the Internet stock bubble. I was among the most vociferous bears extant on technology in the late 1990s. In 1997,I wrote a cautious editorial, "Kids Today" in Barron's, skeptically voicing that the boom in technology/Internet stocks would end in disaster for most traders and investors. AOL's shares eventually fell by 85% -- to this day, it was one of my greatest shorts. AOL had company, for as many recall, the Nasdaq ultimately fell by 75% from the 2000-2001 high. In the second half of 1999 and into the early 2000s, I participated in a number of interviews with Barron's Alan Abelson in which I expressed a negative view directed toward the shares of AOL (later turning more positive). I predicted a steady decline in subscribers as the ISP space became more crowded and competitive -- I was correct -- and for the Internet sector in general. After the merger with Time Warner (TWX) in 2000, the shares fell from the $70s to $10 share. Finally, I invented a "Stock Market Super Bowl Indicator," and my first one (published by Alan Abelson) cautioned that danger was ahead for the Internet sector based on mushrooming in ad spending back in 2000-2001.
• The Facebook IPO fiasco. Additionally, last year I wrote an out-of-consensus negative analysis of Facebook (FB) well before the company went public. Months before the Facebook IPO, I opined that it would be a grand failure (beginning on the first day of its public offering).

Buy Twitter's Shares

Twitter is uniquely positioned in for the mobile delivery of content and advertising. Twitter reminds me of Web portal America Online during its formative growth period of the early 1990s. Back then, AOL and CompuServe formed a strong duopoly in the Internet service provider and email spaces. Eventually, CompuServe, which served the technical community and was a wholly owned subsidiary of H&R Block (HRB), lost market share, and by providing Internet access to the consumer and aggregating information for those who were not very familiar with navigating the Internet, AOL had a dominating position as it exited the decade. AOL's shares rose spectacularly during the period. Today, Twitter is much like America Online was from 1992 to 1995, practically all alone in its monopoly market position.

Twitter holds a first adopter and monopolistic position. Twitter has a long runway ahead of it, where it faces limited direct competition. Whereas in the early 1990s AOL and CompuServe held a duopoly, Twitter has the market to itself. There are two obvious potential competitors to Twitter: Facebook and Google (GOOG). Facebook is trying but just can't get there as of yet for real-time. On Google, I don't think the company has any interest in competing against Twitter. According to an exchange I had with BTIG's Rich Greenfield, it feels more like Google wants to be the back-end connectivity of your identity online with Google Plus compared to Twitter as a real-time news source.

Twitter stands in the middle of the evolution of content creation, distribution and discovery. Twitter is the natural service that follows the 25-year-old tradition of a changing delivery of content creation, distribution and discovery that were previously the property of Web browsers such as Netscape in the early 1990s, Web portals such as AOL and Yahoo! (YHOO) in the mid to late 1990s, search engines such as Google in the early 2000s and social networks such as Facebook in the late 2000s.

Twitter is gaining broad acceptance. A 2013 study conducted by Arbitron and Edison Research found that 44% of Americans hear about tweets through media channels other than Twitter almost every day. As the company expands, so will the breadth of content and Twitter's reach.

America Online's dominant market position led investors toward being forgiving with regard to normal metrics, which might also be the case with Twitter. Twitter's market presence and outstanding growth opportunities will likely yield a pass on traditional metrics (as relationship to operating results, tangible book value etc. will be thrust aside).

Twitter has a large opportunity to expand its user base. Similar to America Online in the early 1990s, the key to Twitter's growth will be the opportunity to expand its consumer base. In turn, platform partners will expand their offerings, and advertisers will eye greater opportunities and engagements. According to industry sources, there are 2.4 billion Internet users and 1.2 billion smartphone users vs. only 230 million monthly active users on Twitter.

Twitter's offering is only a sliver. This is important: Twitter's projected offering of $1.6 billion (unlike Facebook's much larger offering) is simply not enough to go around. Dedicated technology funds will (out of necessity) need to have a foot in the door of Twitter. So will all sorts of growth investors. Moreover (again, unlike Facebook), Twitter's insiders are not selling any stock and have a lockup into early next year. To me, Facebook made a fundamental mistake is selling such a sizeable stake in its IPO. By contrast, selling a sliver guarantees the success of the Twitter offering.

The shares have a reasonable valuation vs. peers. The offering price will represent about 11x estimated enterprise value to sales for 2014 and 7x estimated enterprise value/sales for 2015. This compares to about an 18x multiple if we use a universe of peers such as LinkedIn (LNKD), Zillow (Z) and Facebook, but the three- to five-year sales growth rate at Twitter is expected to be about 70% annually (down from 106% growth in 2013), which is approximately twice the rate of revenue growth of the four peers mentioned above. Twitter's ratio to its peers based on enterprise value per monthly active users is low (at only $55 compared to an average of $114 for the three peers) and provides an upside monetization opportunity. The company's average revenue per user is $2.20 -- Facebook's ratio is $4.32.

Bottom line: I would pay up to $32.50 a share for Twitter's common shares.

• I am buying more shares at $72.24.

I am adding to my ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (TBT) long at $72.24 now.

• Let's take a look at the overnight and early-morning price action in the major asset classes.

The rundown:

• S&P futures are up 1 (but down from 8 during "Homeland" last night);
• Nasdaq are up 6;
• Nikkei is up 2.2%, recouping the 2.8% Friday drop (Nippon Electric Gas beats and raises);
• China Shanghai is up 0.4% (oil/gas and utilities outperformed while health care, telecoms and basic materials lagged);
• European markets are mixed;
• euro are up;
• crude is flat;
• gold is down $1; and
• the 10-year U.S. note yields 2.52% (unchanged day over day).

Worth mentioning:

• On Friday, stocks continued their gains. Markets continued to respond positively to weak economic data and the hope of QE forever, but a great headline number could not mask a very ugly September durables goods report -- durable goods orders up 3.7% (up 2.3% expected), durables ex-transportations down 0.2% (up 0.5% expected), capital goods orders nondefense ex-aircraft down 1.1% (up 1.0% expected), and capital goods orders shipments nondefense ex-aircraft down 0.2% (up 1.1% expected). Wholesale inventories increased 0.5% month over month (0.3% was expected, and the University of Michigan confidence index declined to 73.2 from 75.2 (75 was expected).
• I added to my ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (TBT) and Potash (POT) longs on Friday and did little else.
• I am doing nothing yet today.Markets are slightly higher around the globe. Asia turned around from recent weakness.
• To summarize my market view: Arguably, the global stock markets continue to be materially sourced in central bank policy rather than economic fundamentals. All traders and investors should be cognizant that a market that has disconnected from economic fundamentals is vulnerable to a change in sentiment and/or an exogenous shock.
• Bond yields (10-year) have hit the bottom of my projected range (2.5% to 2.85%). As mentioned previously, I took a long TBT position at $72-72.10.
• Austerity-hit Greeks have nothing left to give, Greek President Karolos Papoulias told the country's EU-IMF creditors on Monday ahead of a fiscal audit tied to fresh loans. "(Greeks) today have given what they can to overcome the crisis, and this must be respected by Europe," 84-year-old Papoulias said at the close of a military parade in Thessaloniki honoring Greece's resistance to fascism. "The Greek people can give no more ... this is our message. And they should not think that we will succumb to blackmail. (We) never have," said Papoulias, who often admonishes the country's EU-IMF creditors in his speeches.
• The World According to Peter Boockvar --
  
  With very little going on this morning ahead of another batch of earnings and the FOMC meeting this week, I just wanted to touch upon some interviews Alan Greenspan did over the past week promoting his new book in light of the current amazing stock market run and the massive influence of the Fed. His stock market prowess we know from his irrational exuberance speech when the DJIA was about 5500 and his bond comments come in the context of what his successor is doing with QE and monetary policy to try to clean up the mess from the Greenspan era of similar policy (not QE but certainly extraordinarily low short term rates). Make what you will of them.
  
  On the stock market he said "In a sense, we are actually at relatively low stock prices...Indeed I say that so called equity premiums are still at a very high level, and that means that the momentum of the market is still ultimately up." In another interview, he said there was little risk in stocks, again citing the specious argument of equity risk premiums in an environment of artificial interest rates.
  
  On Fed policy and bonds, in an interview with the FT, Gillian Tett writes on Greenspan, "he admits that the Fed faces a 'brutal' challenge in finding a smooth exit path. 'I have preferences for rates which are significantly above where they are,' he observes, admitting that he would 'hardly' be tempted to buy long term bonds at their currents rates. "I run my own portfolio and I am not long 30 year bonds."

In the news:

• Politico -- "A Model for Hillary Clinton 2016: Hillary Clinton 2000." 
• The New York Times -- "The Big Kludge."
• The Wall Street Journal -- "Ronald McKinnon: Tapering Without Tears -- How to End QE3"; "U.S. Corporations Pay 35%."
• The Telegraph (London) -- "BIS Sees Risk of 1998-Style Asian Crisis as Chinese Dollar Debt Soars."

Some possible economic and earnings catalysts that could be impact the market:

• U.S. industrial production for September (9:15 a.m. EDT, +0.4% estimate).
• U.S. pending home sales for September (10:00 a.m. EDT, unchanged estimate).
• Analyst meetings -- FDX, Renault, SCHW.
• Iran -- Monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency hold talks in Vienna with Iranian officials on the United Nations' request for wider access to Iran's nuclear facilities.
• Earnings before the open -- Assa Abloy, AWI, BIIB, BOH, CNA, ROP, KDDI, Komatsu, L, MCY, MRK, ROP, SOHU, TEN, TNT Express.
• Earnings after the close -- AAPL ($7.92 estimate), ACGL, ALSN, AMKR, ARE, CGNX, CMP, CNO, CR, DATA, HIG, HLF, MAS, MRH, PMCS, PRE, RGA, RVBD, SANM, STX.